French Cuisine – Appetizers

• Serves: 6
• Prep Time: 15 minutes
• Total Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients

• 8 oz fresh ricotta cheese
• 1/4 cup (2 fl oz) olive oil
• 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 3 tablespoons dry whine wine
• 3/4 cup (6 fl oz) chilled cream
• 2 French shallots finely chopped
• 6 springs flat-leaf parsley finely chopped
• 6 springs chervil leaves only finely chopped
• 10 chive stalks finely chopped
• finaly chopped
• salt and freshly ground pepper

Instructions

Set the cheese to drain, in a colander, 12 hours before commencing preparations.
Turn the drained cheese into a bowl and mash with a fork. Mix in the oil, vinegar and wine.

Whip the cream until stiff and fold into the cheese mixture. Mix in the shallots, herbs, salt and pepper.
Chill thoroughly. Serve the cheese with whole-grain or rye bread, or spread over crackers.

Note:

• The real secrete of French cuisine, is NO secrete; you have to use all the requested ingredients and spices, in my experience the "substitutes" or "omissions " don't work.


• I find out that this recipe is great for parties.


• I also have a bowl in my refrigerator, and if some surprise guests come, I have something to start with.

• Serves: 6
• Prep Time: 45 minutes to 1 hour

Ingredients

• 3 lb small white-fleshed fish of several types
• 1 green bell pepper
• 1/4 cup (2fl oz) olive oil
• 1 onion (around 3 oz) finely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic coarsely chopped
• 1 leek white part only sliced
• 1 lb ripe tomatoes quartered
• 2 spring dried fennel
• 1 spring dried thyme
• 2 pinches of saffron threads
• 3 springs parsley
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 qt water
• salt snd freched ground pepper
• 5 oz cermicelli or 18 slices from a franch baguette
• Grated Emmenthaler cheese and for the rouille sauce
• 3 cloves garlic coarsely chopped
• 2 to 3 fresh red chili peppers halved and seeded
• 1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt
• 1 slice of bread crusts trimmed (from a sandwich loaf around 3 oz)
• 3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil.

Instructions

Scale and gut the fish; wash and pat dry. Cut the green pepper into quarters. Remove the stem, seeds and white ribs, then slice the pepper thinly.
Heat the oil in a 6-qt saucepan. Add the onion, garlic, pepper and leek and cook, stirring, over low heat for 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes, fennel, thyme, saffron, parsley, bay leaf and fish and stir for 1 minute. Cover and cook over low heat for 10 minutes.
Bring 2qt water to boil in a saucepan and add to the fish mixture. season the soup with salt and pepper. Cover and let simmer for 20 minutes over low heat.

Prepare the "rouille sauce": combine the garlic, chillies and salt in a food processor or blender and grind to a smooth paste. Crumble in the bread and blend again. Pour in the oil in a thin steam; blend until the sauce is thick and smooth.

Strain the cooked soup through a sieve, pressing down well to extract all the flavor of the fish. Rinse the pan and return the soup to it, straining through a fine sieve. If you are using vermicelli, bring the soup to boil, add the pasta and cook until all dent. Some people prefers to use bread, then lightly toast the slices on both sides and offer them separately.
Pour the soup into a bowl and serve it immediately with the rouille and cheese passed around separately

• Serves: 6
• Prep Time: 1 hour
• Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients

• 5 tablespoons extra virgine olive oil
• 4 lb large onions thinly sliced
• 4 cloves fresh garlic finely chopped
• 2 tablespoos water
• 13oz bread dough
• 16 anchovy fillets in olive oil
• 4 oz black Nicoise olives

Instructions

Heat 4 tablespoons olive oil in a nonstick 10-in skillet. Add the onions and garlic and cook, stirring, over low heat for 10 minutes or until the onions are golden. Add the water and season with salt. Cover and cook gently for 30 minutes or until the onions are transparent and very soft, adding a little more water if necessary during cooking.
Preheat oven om 400 degree F, lightly oil in a square baking cooking pan (14 x 9 in). Gently roll out the bread dough to fit and lay it in the pan. Spread the cooked onion mixture on the surface. Arrange the anchovy fillets in a lattice pattern on top, placing an olive in the center of each squire. Sprinkle with the remaining oil. Bake for 30 minutes or until the crust is golden.
Cut the pissaladiere into large squares of wedges, and serve hot or warn.

• Serves: 6
• Prep Time: 2-3 hours
• Total Time: 6 hours

Ingredients

• 1 duck about 2 1/2 lb with its liver
• 3 oz fresh pork belly
• 8 oz pork fillet
• 8 oz boneless rabbit or chicken meat
• 8 oz mushrooms
• 1 oz butter
• 1 onion finely chopped
• 2 French shallots
• finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons gin
• 3 eggs
• salt and freshly ground pepper
• 1 lb 6 oz short crust pastry
• 1 tablespoon milk

Instructions

When buy the duck tell the butcher to bone the duck without cutting through the skin, aster the tail and wings are removed, it looks like a large pocket.
It is a laborious recipe and those are the steps:

• Cut the pork belly, fillet and the rabbit into 1/2 in. Trim the duck liver and cut in large cubes. Cut the mushrooms in small slices
• Melt the butter in a 10-in skillet
• Add the onion and shallots, stirring for 2 minutes or until light golden
• Add the mushrooms and cook over high heat until they their liquid has evaporated
• Add the 3 meats and the duck liver and cool stirring until light brown (or 5 minutes) at this point pour the gin
• Turn the contents of the pen onto a chopping board, and chop in small pieces
• Transfer to a big bowl and mix in 2 whole eggs and one egg white, pepper, salt.
• Fill the duck with 2/3 of the mixture
• Preheat oven to 400F
• Divide the pastry in half, roll out the pastry into an oval shape., a little larger then the duck. Spread 1/2 of the reserved filling on the pastry to within 3/4 in of the edges
• Moister the edge with a brush dipped in cold water.place the duck in top of the filling and spread the remaining filling over the duck
• Roll the remaining pastry into an oval and put it over the duck. Firmly pres the pastry edges together to seal
• Whisk the reserved egg yolk with milk and brush over the entire surface of the pate
• Bake the pate for 2 1/2 hours at 375 F oven temperature
• Let the pate cool before serving